Censor Watch

The director of Poland's National Museum of Culture took it on himself to take down a classic 1975 artwork on the grounds that it might irritate sensitive young people.

Consumer Art or Body Art is a video by Natalia Lach-Lachowicz, who goes by the name Natalia LL, showing a bare-shouldered woman eating a banana in a rather suggestive fashion.

The director also removed was a 2005 video by Katarzyna Kozyra that showed a woman holding a leash attached to two men dressed as dogs on all fours. He explained:

Certain topics related to gender shouldn't be explicitly shown,

However the censorship by Museum Director Jerzy Miziolek was widely ridiculed. Many took to Instagram and other platforms to post photos of themselves eating bananas, including another prominent Polish artist, photographer Sylwia Kowalczyk, who posted:

This should not happen to any artist, male or female, Kowalczyk told CNN . Natalia Lach-Lachowicz is one of the icons of the Polish contemporary art and has her place in art history already.

Hundreds of people also gathered to eat bananas outside Poland's national gallery in Warsaw on Monday to protest the censorship.

Responding to this public pressure Miziolek said that he would reinstate the Consumer Art exhibit -- but only for another week, when the museum begins a renovation project. Whether Consumer Art would return after the renovations are complete remained unclear.

Miziolek was appointed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government's Ministry of Culture. The ministry has consistently cut funding for the arts and fired arts staff who do not follow the party's line. However the ministry denied it was involved in the decision to remove this artwork.

AVN.com is reporting that the online forum Reddit has been blocked by the country's largest ISPs

Reddit is ranked as the 21st most heavily trafficked site in the world. It has 330 million users spread across 217 countries.

Reddit, of course, is one of the few remaining major social media platforms that does not ban porn, and according to the India Times report, that is likely the reason why the Indian ISPs would block the discussion forum site.

When Disney's streaming service Disney Plus launches in the US in November this year. It will feature a back catalogue of many years of Disney films with one exception. Namely the 1946 film Song of the South, which has long been a controversial title for Disney because of how it depicts the lives of African-American plantation workers in the southern states after the civil war.

The company has also decided to cut a scene from Dumbo that is considered racist.

Song of the South grossed $65m at the US box office but was never released on DVD in the country, partly because of criticism about its depiction of the lives of Uncle Remus and other former slaves on a plantation as idyllic.

However, erasing the film from the company's history isn't simple. The success of the song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah -- which features in the film, won an Oscar in 1947 and is one of Disney's most well-known songs -- makes it extremely difficult to quietly forget.

Also the Jim Crow scene from Dumbo (1941) will not be available on the streaming site. In the original animated version of the film a number of cigar-smoking crows had a leader called Jim Crow referencing the Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation in the south. The Disney crows are largely considered to be thinly veiled racist caricatures.

Update: Fantasia too

30th April 2019.

Thanks to Gary who reminds us that Fantasia (1940) has already been censored by Disney for political correctness. From IMDb:

For the 60th anniversary DVD, one scene on the Pastoral sequence was digitally altered to remove a black centaurette. In the scene, Bacchus is being lead to his throne, while the black centaurette rolls out a red carpet. The change now makes the carpet appear to be rolling by itself.

Gary also suggests that Sebastian from The Little Mermaid and the Siamese scene from The Aristocats will also have to go.

New Zealand police have charged a young man for sharing a meme based on Brenton Tarrant's live streamed murderous attack on a Christchurch mosque.

The New Zealand authorities had previously banned the video with the official film censor declaring it as 'objectionable'. And apparently this makes even the use of still images as totally illegal.

ABC News is reporting that at least six people have been charged with illegally sharing the video contents with other people, but presumably this is referring to the whole video being passed on.

And again according to ABC the meme sharing young man has been held in jail since being arrested for his joke. He will reappear in court on July 31 when electronically monitored bail will be considered.

Meanwhile New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, will be meeting with executives from big tech, along with world leaders, in order to prohibit the spread or sharing of violent extremism or terrorism from being shown online at all. This official policy calling for censorship has been tagged The Christchurch Call but details haven't been made public, yet.

Ironically this all seems to playing into the hands of the Christchurch shooter, Brenton Tarrant. In his manifesto he specifically wanted governments and regulators to escalate censorship to the point of creating civil unrest.

Update: Jailed

19th June 2019. See article from straitstimes.com

A New Zealand man was jailed for 21 months yesterday for distributing the gruesome live-stream video of the Christchurch mosque attacks that killed 51 Muslim worshippers.

Christchurch District Court heard that the man distributed the raw footage to about 30 people and had another version modified to include crosshairs and a kill count, The New Zealand Herald reported.

This was in effect a hate crime against the Muslim community, Judge Stephen O'Driscoll said, adding that it was particularly cruel to share the video in the days after the attacks, when families were still waiting to hear news of their loved ones.

An art exhibit that aimed to spark conversation about violence against women by showing Barbie dolls being abused has been moved out of a shop window.

A few complaints were made about the collection, named Girls World , which were displayed in a Middlesbrough shopping centre in full view of children.

The work showed pictures of the children's toy being kicked by boyfriend Ken, giving birth to an unwanted child, and hanging herself from a tree. It was hoped the display, created by artist Lidia Lidia, would raise awareness of violence against females.

The exhibition was first put up on April 10 and was due to run for a fortnight before being removed from the front window on April 18. The exhibition has now been moved to the back of the gallery, in Middlesbrough, where it will remain until May 11.

In a statement, Lidia Lidia thanked the co-directors of the Pineapple Black galler for showing the 'somewhat controversial piece and apologised to people who found her work uncomfortable. She added:

I am totally aware that my work is provocative and sometimes disturbing but I strongly believe that art nowadays is one of the most powerful tools for shaping a fair and equal society.

A trio of US senators want info and answers from a range of media companies--broadcast, cable, satellite and over-the-top--about what role the entertainment industry plays in promoting youth tobacco use, suggesting ratings should include tobacco use identifiers and any TV show showing tobacco be rated TV-MA and any movie get an R rating.

Democratic Senators. Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Van Hollen sent the letters, saying that youth media consumption and the anywhere, anytime model of film and TV distribution as changed traditional boundaries among media:

We are concerned that this new landscape across cable, satellite, streaming and traditional broadcast television provides a variety of viewing realms in which to foster the causal link between exposure to, and initiation of, smoking.

They argued that both the TV and movie ratings should include a smoking depiction warning. Both film and television continue to expose children and adolescents to tobacco content conclusively provide to cause physical harm to young viewers. In particular they want the reactions of media companies to their recommendations:

1. to rate all future content containing tobacco portrayals TV-MA on TV and R on film;
2. that the production had no tobacco product placement;
3. that strong anti-smoking Public Service Announcements will run immediately before any TV show or film with tobacco use;
4. that they end promotional material with smoking depictions.

Children's Violent Video Game Play Associated with Increased Physical Aggressive Behavior

Dartmouth Analysis of Multiple Studies Demonstrates How Effect Varies Across Ethnicity

Violent video game play by adolescents is associated with increases in physical aggression over time, according to a Dartmouth meta-analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) .

Although most researchers on the subject agree that playing violent video games appears to increase physical aggression, a vocal minority continues to dispute this. To examine issues raised by the counterclaims on this topic, Dartmouth researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 24 studies from around the world from 2010 to 2017 with over 17,000 participants, ages nine to 19 years-old. The studies all examined how violent video game play affected changes in real-world physical aggression over time, ranging from three months to four years. Examples of physical aggression included incidents such as hitting someone or being sent to the principal's office for fighting, and were based on self-reports by children, parents, teachers and peers.

Dartmouth's study examined three specific critiques of the literature on video game play and aggression:

• To address claims that previous meta-analyses overestimate the association of violent video game play and aggression because they include "non-serious" measures of aggression, this meta-analysis was limited to studies that measured reports of overt, physical aggression over time. Despite this more stringent criterion, findings supported the hypothesis that playing violent games is associated with subsequent increases in physical aggression.

• To investigate claims that effects are often inflated because many studies do not take into account other variables predictive of aggressive behavior, Dartmouth researchers compared analyses that included or did not include information on such variables and found that taking these data into account had only a minor effect on the size of the observed relation between violent video game play and aggression.

• To evaluate claims that the estimated effect of violent game play on aggression is inflated because of a bias against publishing studies that fail to find a relation of violent game play and aggression, Dartmouth researchers conducted a variety of different tests and found no evidence of publication bias.

In addition to providing evidence that violent video game play is associated with increased aggression over time, the study also reports that this effect appears to be significantly different for various ethnic groups: the largest effect was observed among white participants, with some effect noted among Asians and no effect observed among Hispanics. Although speculative, the authors suggest that this effect may reflect a greater emphasis on maintaining empathy toward victims of aggression among Eastern and Hispanic cultures in contrast to an emphasis on "rugged individualism" in Western cultures.

Lead author Jay G. Hull , the Dartmouth Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, said:

Although no single research project is definitive, our research aims to provide the most current and compelling responses to key criticisms on this topic. Based on our findings, we feel it is clear that violent video game play is associated with subsequent increases in physical aggression.

Co-author James D. Sargent, the Scott M. and Lisa G. Stuart Professor of Pediatric Oncology said:

The most notable critic of the violent video game aggression literature conducted studies in primarily Hispanic populations and found no evidence of this association. If all of my studies showed null findings, I too, would be skeptical. I hope our findings prompt skeptics to reevaluate their position, especially since some of our other research indicates that violent video game play may increase deviance with implications for multiple risk behaviors.

Starting with a little background into the authorship of the document under review. AVSecure CMO Steve Winyard told XBIZ:

The accreditation plan appears to have very strict rules and was crafted with significant input from various governmental bodies, including the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media & Sport), NCC Group plc (an expert security and audit firm), GCHQ (U.K. Intelligence and Security Agency), ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) and of course the BBFC.

But computer security expert Alec Muffett writes:

This is the document which is being proffered to protect the facts & details of _YOUR_ online #Porn viewing. Let's read it together!

What could possibly go wrong?

....

This document's approach to data protection is fundamentally flawed.

The (considerably) safer approach - one easier to certificate/validate/police - would be to say everything is forbidden except for upon for ; you would then allow vendors to appeal for exceptions under review.

It makes a few passes at pretending that this is what it's doing, but with subjective holes (green) that you can drive a truck through:

...

What we have here is a rehash of quite a lot of reasonable physical/operational security, business continuity & personnel security management thinking -- with digital stuff almost entirely punted.

It's better than #PAS1296 , but it's still not fit for purpose.

Read the full thread

Batman Returns is a 1992 USA / UK action crime fantasy by Tim Burton.
Starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Cut by the BBFC for a 12 rated cinema release in 1992 and the follow up VHS. Less cut for 12 rated DVD in 2006. Then uncut for 15 rated Blu-ray in 2008 and finally rated 12A uncut for 2019 cinema release. Always uncut and MPAA PG-13 rated in the US.

		UK: Passed 12A uncut for moderate violence, injury detail, sex references, threat, sexual threat ( 126:18s ) :
2019 cinema release

Summary Notes

In the sewers of gotham city to the rooftops of the gotham city the penguin wants to know where he came from well in his villain ways catwoman plans to kill rich man of gotham max shreak but as he battles with millionaire Bruce Wayne both ladies men have their own secrets Bruce Wayne is back as Bat man trying to stop the penguin Max is helping penguin steal gotham city while selina Kyle/catwoman tries to help penguin not knowing her man murder target also her murder is helping him but all four men have their goals taking gotham from crime winning gotham city assassination for two men and more money to be gotham citys number one rich man.

NewsGuard is a US organisation trying to muscle in governments' concerns about 'fake news'' It doesn't fact check individual news stories but gives ratings to news organisations on what it considers to be indicators of 'trustworthiness'.

At the moment it is most widely known for providing browser add-ons that displays a green shield when readers are browsing an 'approved' news website and a red shield when the website is disapproved.

Now the company is pushing something a little more Orwellian. It is in talks with UK internet providers such that the ISP would inject some sort of warning screen should an internet user [inadvertently] stray onto a 'wrong think' website.

The idea seems to be that users can select whether they want these intrusive warnings or not, via a similar mechanism used for the parental control of website blocking.

NewsGuard lost an awful of credibility in the UK when its first set of ratings singled out the Daily Mail as a 'wrong think' news source. It caused a bit of a stink and the decisions was reversed, but it rather shows where the company is coming from.

Surely they are patronising the British people if they think that people want to be nagged about reading the Daily Mail. People are well aware of the bases and points of views of news sources they read. They will not want to be nagged by those that think they know best what people should be reading.

I think it is only governments and politicians that are supposedly concerned about 'fake news anyway'. They see it as some sort blame opportunity. It can't possibly be their politicians' own policies that are so disastrously unpopular with the people, surely it must be mischievous 'fake news' peddlers that are causing the grief.

The BBFC has tweaked the look and feel of its website with a new bolder looking typeface set against a white background.

The BBFC has also corrected the previously slow starting search box that used to delete what you typed if you started before the form was ready.

Otherwise the data presented seems to about the same as before, but I did spot one significant change. The short and long summaries of ratings issues in a film have been changed. They were previously referred to as BBFCInsight but are now labelled: Rating Info

Previously the BBFC has steered away form using the word 'rating' preferring to use the term 'classification'.

Carry on England is a 1976 UK war comedy by Gerald Thomas.
Starring Kenneth Connor, Windsor Davies and Judy Geeson.

Originally screened uncut with an 'AA' rating in 1976. After bombing at the box office the film was withdrawn and rapidly replaced with a cut 'A' rated version. This cut version was released on VHS and was used for TV broadcast. The original uncut version was later passed PG for DVD release and tagged as the Director's Cut.

Summary Notes

Captain S. Melly takes over as the new Commanding Officer at an experimental mixed sex air defence base. It's 1940 and England is under heavy bombardment, but the crew seem more interested in each other than the enemy planes above. Captain Melly plans to put a stop to all this, and becomes the target of a campaign to abandon his separatist ideals...

Director's Cut

uncut run: 88:41s pal: 85:08s

UK: The Director's Cut was passed PG uncut: 2003 Carlton Visual Entertainment Special Edition [Director's Cut + Cut Version] R2 DVD at UK Amazon 2001 Video Collection International/Cinema Club [Director's Cut] R2 DVD Thanks to Braintree When Carlton released England on DVD it was something of a treat to actually get a choice to watch either version. Shame it had to be one of the worst of the series. This was one of the Rank films and it it was interesting to note that the uncut version was retained in the vaults. Perhaps the uncut versions of the other Rank films are somewhere hidden away in those vaults. UK: Passed AA (14) uncut: 1976 cinema release Thanks to Braintree Originally released 'AA' (14) uncut. It lasted about a week in the cinema where it bombed. It was hastily withdrawn and cut for an 'A rating'. The BBFC database record for the original AA version seems to have been replaced by the subsequent cut 'A' rated release

Cut Version

category cuts cut: run: 87:44s pal: 84:13s		UK: The cut cinema version was passed PG : 1987 Futurevision VHS
category cuts cut: run: 86:24s pal: 82:57s sub: 87:05s		UK: Passed A (PG) after BBFC category cuts: 1976 cinema release The BBFC cuts were: Thanks to Vincenzo Reel 6 - Replace joke about Heinkels and Bristols with cover material which omits the utterance of 'Fokker'. Reel 6 - Replace shots of bare-breasted women with flash shots of bare breasts to establishment only. [the topless nudity was in the Trousers and nothing else scene], Two versions of the warplane recognition scene exist. The original AA rated Director's cut included a Patrick Mower line: No, but I know a Fokker when I see one. The cut version used the replacement line: Well, Bristols usually come in pairs The Bristols version was the one used for BBC TV broadcast.

Twitter writes in a blog post:

Strengthening our approach to deliberate attempts to mislead voters

Voting is a fundamental human right and the public conversation occurring on Twitter is never more important than during elections. Any attempts to undermine the process of registering to vote or engaging in the electoral process is contrary to our company's core values.

Today, we are further expanding our enforcement capabilities in this area by creating a dedicated reporting feature within the product to allow users to more easily report this content to us. This is in addition to our existing proactive approach to tackling malicious automation and other forms of platform manipulation on the service. We will start with 2019 Lok Sabha in India and the EU elections and then roll out to other elections globally throughout the rest of the year.

What types of content are in violation?

You may not use Twitter's services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections. This includes but is not limited to:

• Misleading information about how to vote or register to vote (for example, that you can vote by Tweet, text message, email, or phone call);

• Misleading information about requirements for voting, including identification requirements; and

• Misleading statements or information about the official, announced date or time of an election.

There has been a bit of a bottleneck for gaming in China as the responsibility for games censorship moved from a government organisati to a Communist Party propaganda unit.

As the new organisations starts to work out its new remit it is hardly surprising that new censorship rules would appear. And now the new game censor has announced three new game themes that are now banned:

• gambling games such as Mahjong and Poker
• games that deal with the country's imperial history
• games featuring corpses and blood--of any color.

Other initiatives include requesting publishers to change how their titles promote Chinese values and culture so that if they become popular around the world, they'll portray the country in a favorable light.

The new regulations also require developers and publishers to divulge more information about a given title including detailed scripts, screenshots, as well as what features are being included to help curb gameplay addiction and over-spending by the country's younger population.

Brazilian metal band Sepultura has been banned from entering Lebanon after members were accused of being devil worshippers.

According to Al Araby, Lebanon's General Security denied the artist visa applications for the band members. Skull Session, an organizer of metal events in Beirut, released a statement:

We are as outraged and angry as all of you will be.

We were told that the issue is delicate as it relates to insulting Christianity, that the band members are devil worshippers, that they held a concert in Israel, that they filmed a video clip supporting Israel, and that the decision was issued by the head of the General Security Forces.

Skull Session denied these allegations, and criticized the recurring forms of censorship in Lebanon.

In 1993, Sepultura shot the music video for Territory in both Israel and Palestine, according to Loudwire . But, Skull Session confirmed that the band had not played a show in Israeli territory.

Video-sharing app TikTok has introduced an age gate feature for new users, which it claims will only allow those aged 13 years and above to create an account. TikTok also declared that it has removed more than six million videos that were in violation of its community guidelines.

TikTok is said to be based in more than 20 countries, including India, and covers major Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati.

The app was banned by the Madras High Court earlier this month, chiefly on the ground that it posed a danger to children. The court said the app contained degrading culture, and that it encouraged pornography and pedophilia.

In February, TikTok was fined $5.7 million by the US Federal Trade Commission for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information of children below 13 years without parental consent.

As of April 15, the app remains available for download on Google's Play Store. TikTok's push for user safety

Update: TikTok unbanned

25th April 2019. See article from theverge.com

The short video sharing app TikTok has managed to persuade an Indian court that it is capable of censoring nudity in videos that will degrade Indian viewers.

Brightburn is a 2019 USA Sci-Fi horror thriller by David Yarovesky.
Starring Elizabeth Banks, David Denman and Matt Jones.

		UK: Passed 15 for strong gory injury detail, violence, language after BBFC advised pre-cuts ( 90:12s ) :
2019 cinema release

The BBFC commented:

• This film was originally seen for advice at which stage the company was informed it was likely to be classified 18 uncut but that their preferred 15 classification could be achieved by making reductions to two scenes featuring both strong gory images and a dwelling on the infliction of pain and injury. When the film was submitted for formal classification these scenes had been acceptably reduced.

For comparison in the US the film was rated R uncut for horror violence/bloody images, and language.

Summary Notes

What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?

A DNS server translates the text name of a website into the numerical IP address. At the moment ISPs provide the DNS servers and they use this facility to block websites. If you want to access bannedwebsite.com the ISP simply refuses to tell your browser the IP address of the website you are seeking. The ISPs use this capability to implement blocks on terrorist/child abuse, copyright infringing websites, porn websites with out age verification, network level parental control blocking and many more things envisaged in the Government's Online Harms white paper.

At the moment DNS requests are transmitted in the clear so even if you chose another DNS server the ISP can see what you are up to, intercept the message and apply its own censorship rules anyway.

This is all about to change, as the internet authorities have introduced a change meaning that DNS requests can now be encrypted using the web standard encryption as used by https. The new protocol option is known is DNS Over HTTPS or DOH.

The address being requested cannot be monitored under several internet protocols, DNS over TLS and DNSCrypt but DNS Over HTTPS goes one step further in that ISPs cannot even detect that it is DNS request at al. It appears exactly the same as a standard HTTPS request for the website content. This prevents the authorities from refusing to allow DNS Over HTTPS at all by blocking all such requests. If they tried they would have to block all https websites.

There's nothing to stop users from sticking with their ISPs DNS and submitting to all the familiar censorship policies. However if your browser allows, you can ask the browser to ask to use a non censorial DNS server over HTTPS. There are already plenty of servers out there to choose from, but it is down to the browser to define the choice available to you. Firefox already allows you to select their own encrypted DNS server. Google is not far behind with its Chrome Browser.

At the moment Firefox already allows those with techie bent to opt for the Firefox DOH, but Firefox recently made waves by suggesting that it would soon default to using its own server and make it a techie change to opt out and revert to ISP DNS. Perhaps this sounds a little unlikely.

The Government have got well wound up by the fear of losing censorship control over UK internet users so no doubt will becalling in people from Firefox and Chrome to try to get them to enforce state censorship. However it may not be quite so easy. The new protocol allows for anyone to offer non censorial (or even censorial) DOH servers. If Firefox can be persuaded to toe the government line then other browsers can step in instead.

The UK Government broadband ISPs and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) are now set to meet on the 8th May 2019 in order to discuss Google's forthcoming implementation of encrypted DOH. It should be an interesting meeting but I bet they'll never publish the minutes.

I rather suspect that the Government has shot itself in the foot over this with its requirements for porn users to identify themselves before being able to access porn. Suddenly they have will have spurred millions of users to take an interest in censorship circumvention to avoid endangering themselves, and probably a couple of million more who will be wanting to avoid the blocks because they are too young. DNS, DOH, VPNs, Tor and the likes will soon become everyday jargon.

On the 15th of March, the German Bundesrat (Federal Council) voted to amend the Criminal Code in relation to internet based services such as The onion router (Tor).

The proposed law has been lambasted as being too vague, with privacy experts rightfully fearful that the law would be overapplied. The proposal, originating from the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Justice Peter Biesenbach, would amend and expand criminal law and make running a Tor node or website illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. According to Zeit.de, if passed, the expansion of the Criminal Code would be used to punish anyone who offers an internet-based service whose access and accessibility is limited by special technical precautions, and whose purpose or activity is directed to commit or promote certain illegal acts.

What's worse is that the proposed changes are so vaguely worded that many other services that offer encryption could be seen as falling under this new law. While the proposal does seem to have been written to target Tor hidden services which are dark net markets, the vague way that the proposal has been written makes it a very real possibility that other encrypted services such as messaging might be targeted under these new laws, as well.

Now that the motion to amend has been accepted by Bundesrat, it will be forwarded to the Federal Government for drafting, consideration, and comment. Then, within a month and a half, this new initiative will be forwarded to the German Senate, aka the Bundestag, where it will be finally voted on. Private Internet Access and many others denounce this proposal and continue to support Tor and an open internet

Private Internet Access currently supports the Tor Project and runs a number of Tor exit nodes as a part of our commitment to online privacy. PIA believes this proposed amendment to the German Criminal Code is not just bad for Tor, which was named specifically, but also for online privacy as a whole -- and we're not the only ones.

German criminal lawyer David Schietinger told Der Spiegel that he was concerned the law was too overreaching and could also mean an e-mail provider or the operator of a classic online platform with password protection.

The bill contains mainly rubber paragraphs with the clear goal to criminalize operators and users of anonymization services. Intentionally, the facts are kept very blurred. The intention is to create legal uncertainty and unavoidable risks of possible criminal liability for anyone who supports the right to anonymous communication on the Internet.

The BBFC has published a detailed standard for age verifiers to get tested against to obtain a green AV kite mark aiming to convince users that their identity data and porn browsing history is safe.

I have read through the document and conclude that it is indeed a rigorous standard that I guess will be pretty tough for companies to obtain. I would say it would be almost impossible for a small or even medium size website to achieve the standard and more or less means that using an age verification service is mandatory.

The standard has lots of good stuff about physical security of data and vetting of staff access to the data.

Age verifier AVSecure commented:

We received the final documents and terms for the BBFC certification scheme for age verification providers last Friday. This has had significant input from various Government bodies including DCMS (Dept for Culture, Media & Sport), NCC Group plc (expert security and audit firm), GCHQ (UK Intelligence & Security Agency) ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) and of course the BBFC (the regulator).

The scheme appears to have very strict rules.

It is a multi-disciplined scheme which includes penetration testing, full and detailed audits, operational procedures over and above GDPR and the DPA 2018 (Data Protection Act). There are onerous reporting obligations with inspection rights attached. It is also a very costly scheme when compared to other quality standard schemes, again perhaps designed to deter the faint of heart or shallow of pocket.

Consumers will likely be advised against using any systems or methods where the prominent green AV accreditation kitemark symbol is not displayed.

But will the age verifier be logging your ID data and browsing history?

And the answer is very hard to pin down from the document. At first read it suggests that minimal data will be retained, but a more sceptical read, connecting a few paragraphs together suggests that the verifier will be required to keep extensive records about the users porn activity.

Maybe this is a reflection of a recent change of heart. Comments from AVSecure suggested that the BBFC/Government originally mandated a log of user activity but recently decided that keeping a log or not is down to the age verifier.

As an example of the rather evasive requirements:

8.5.9 Physical Location

Personal data relating to the physical location of a user shall not be collected as part of the age-verification process unless required for fraud prevention and detection. Personal data relating to the physical location of a user shall only be retained for as long as required for fraud prevention and detection.

Here it sounds like keeping tabs on location is optional, but another paragraph suggest otherwise:

8.4.14 Fraud Prevention and Detection

Real-time intelligent monitoring and fraud prevention and detection systems shall be used for age-verification checks completed by the age-verification provider.

Now it seems that the fraud prevention is mandatory, and so a location record is mandatory after all.

Also the use off the phrase only be retained for as long as required for fraud prevention and detection. seems a little misleading too, as in reality fraud prevention will be required for as long as the customer keeps on using it. This may as well be forever.

There are other statements that sound good at first read, but don't really offer anything substantial:

8.5.6 Data Minimisation

Only the minimum amount of personal data required to verify a user's age shall be collected.

But if the minimum is to provide name and address + eg a drivers licence number or a credit card number then the minimum is actually pretty much all of it. In fact there are only the porn pass methods that offer any scope for 'truely minimal' data collection. Perhaps the minimal data also applies to the verified mobile phone method as although the phone company probably knows your identity, then maybe they won't need to pass it on to the age verifier.

What does the porn site get to know

The rare unequivocal and reassuring statement is

8.5.8 Sharing Results

Age-verification providers shall only share the result of an age-verification check (pass or fail) with the requesting website.

So it seems that identity details won't be passed to the websites themselves.

However the converse is not so clear:

8.5.6 Data Minimisation

Information about the requesting website that the user has visited shall not be collected against the user's activity.

Why add the phrase, against the user's activity. This is worded such that information about the requesting website could indeed be collected for another reason, fraud detection maybe.

Maybe the scope for an age verifier to maintain a complete log of porn viewing is limited more by the practical requirement for a website to record a successful age verification in a cookie such that the age verifier only gets to see one interaction with each website.

No doubt we shall soon find out whether the government wants a detailed log of porn viewed, as it will be easy to spot if a website queries the age verifier for every film you watch.

Fraud Detection

And what about all this reference to fraud detection. Presumably the BBFC/Government is a little worried that passwords and accounts will be shared by enterprising kids. But on the other hand it may make life tricky for those using shared devices, or perhaps those who suddenly move from London to New York in an instant, when in fact this is totally normal for someone using a VPN on a PC.

Wrap up

The BBFC/Government have moved on a long way from the early days when the lawmakers created the law without any real protection for porn users and the BBFC first proposed that this could be rectified by asking porn companies to voluntarilyfollow 'best practice' in keeping people's data safe.

A definite improvement now, but I think I will stick to my VPN.

A TV channel, a porn producer, an age verifier and maybe even the government got together this week to put out a live test of age verification. The test was implemented on a specially created website featuring a single porn video.

The test required a well advertised website to provide enough traffic of viewers positively wanting to see the content. Channel 4 obliged with its series Mums Make Porn. The series followed a group of mums making a porn video that they felt would be more sex positive and less harmful to kids than the more typical porn offerings currently on offer.

The mums did a good job and produced a decent video with a more loving and respectful interplay than is the norm. The video however is still proper hardcore porn and there is no way it could be broadcast on Channel 4. So the film was made available, free of charge, on its own dedicated website complete with an age verification requirement.

The website was announced as a live test for AgeChecked software to see how age verification would pan out in practice. It featured the following options for age verification

1. entering full credit card details + email
2. entering driving licence number + name and address + email
3. mobile phone number + email (the phone must have been verified as 18+ by the service provider and must must be ready to receive an SMS message containing login details)

Nothing has been published in detail about the aims of the test but presumably they were interested in the basic questions such as:

• What proportion of potential viewers will be put off by the age verification?
• What proportion of viewers would be stupid enough to enter their personal data?
• Which options of identification would be preferred by viewers?

The official test 'results'

Alastair Graham, CEO of AgeChecked provided a few early answers inevitably claiming that:

The results of this first mainstream test of our software were hugely encouraging.

He went on to claim that customers are willing to participate in the process, but noted that verified phone number method emerged as by far the most popular method of verification. He said that this finding would be a key part of this process moving forward.

Reading between the lines perhaps he was saying that there wasn't much appetite for handing over detailed personal identification data as required by the other two methods.

I suspect that we will never get to hear more from AgeChecked especially about any reluctance of people to identify themselves as porn viewers.

The unofficial test results

Maybe they were also interested in other questions too:

• Will people try and work around the age verification requirements?
• if people find weaknesses in the age verification defences, will they pass on their discoveries to others?

Interestingly the age verification requirement was easily sidestepped by those with a modicum of knowledge about downloading videos from websites such as YouTube and PornHub. The age verification mechanism effectively only hid the start button from view. The actual video remained available for download, whether people age verified or not. All it took was a little examination of the page code to locate the video. There are several tools that allow this: video downloader addons, file downloaders or just using the browser's built in debugger to look at the page code.

Presumably the code for the page was knocked up quickly so this flaw could have been a simple oversight that is not likely to occur in properly constructed commercial websites. Or perhaps the vulnerability was deliberately included as part of the test to see if people would pick up on it.

However it did identify that there is a community of people willing to stress test age verification restrictions and see if work rounds can be found and shared.

I noted on Twitter that several people had posted about the ease of downloading the video and had suggested a number of tools or methods that enabled this.

There was also an interesting article posted on achieving age verification using an expired credit card. Maybe that is not so catastrophic as it still identifies a cardholder as over 18, even if cannot be used to make a payment. But of course it may open new possibilities for misuse of old data. Note that random numbers are unlikely to work because of security algorithms. Presumably age verification companies could strengthen the security by testing that a small transaction works, but this intuitively this would have significant cost implications. I guess that to achieve any level of take up, age verification needs to be cheap for both websites and viewers.

Community Spirit

It was very heartening to see how many people were helpfully contributing their thoughts about testing the age verification software.

Over the course of a couple of hours reading, I learnt an awful lot about how websites hide and protect video content, and what tools are available to see through the protection. I suspect that many others will soon be doing the same... and I also suspect that young minds will be far more adept than I at picking up such knowledge.

A final thought

I feel a bit sorry for small websites who sell content. It adds a whole new level complexity as a currently open preview area now needs to be locked away behind an age verification screen. Many potential customers will be put off by having to jump through hoops just to see the preview material. To then ask them to enter all their credit card details again to subscribe, may be a hurdle too far.

Update: The Guardian reports that age verification were easily circumvented

22nd April 2019. See article from theguardian.com

The Guardian reported that the credit card check used by AgeChecked could be easily fooled by generating a totally false credit card number. Note that a random number will not work as there is a well known sum check algorithm which invalidates a lot of random numbers. But anyone who knows or looks up the algorithm would be able to generate acceptable credit card numbers that would at least defeat AgeChecked.

Or they would have been had AgeChecked not now totally removed the credit card check option from its choice of options.

Still the damage was done when the widely distributed Guardian article has established doubts about the age verification process.

Of course the workaround is not exactly trivial and will stop younger kids from 'stumbling on porn' which seems to be the main fall back position of this entire sorry scheme.

Recent complaints about three Firebox products - Unicorn Tears Gin Liqueur , Unicorn Tears Raspberry Gin Liqueur and Unicorn Tears Raspberry Gin Liqueur Miniature - have been upheld by the Independent Complaints Panel.

The complainant, a member of the public, said the images on the product appealed to children. The Panel noted the illustration of the unicorn had the appearance of a child's drawing and would not be out of place as a logo on a child's toy, in a colouring book, or on an item of children's clothing. When considering the overall impression conveyed by the product, including the unicorn logo and childlike typeface, the Panel considered that the product did have a particular appeal to under 18s, and accordingly upheld the complaint.

The panel also agreed that the words Gin Liqueur and the product's ABV could have been communicated in larger text on the front of the label given that the product packaging was unconventional and was likely to have a particular appeal to under 18s. It was the view of the Panel that the product had the potential to cause consumer confusion as to its alcoholic nature and the Panel therefore did not believe that this had been communicated with absolute clarity within the spirit of the Code, particularly when considered alongside the unicorn logo, childlike typeface, sparkly pink liquid colour and cosmetic-like appearance.

Firebox is now working with the Advisory Service to amend the label on these three products.

It's not only China and the UK that want to identify internet users, Austria also wants to demand that forum contributors submit their ID before being able to post.

Austria's government has introduced a bill that would require larger social media websites and forums to obtain the identity of its users prior to them being able to post comments. Users will have to provide their name and address to websites but nicknames are still allowed and the identity data will not be made public.

Punishments for non complying websites will be up to 500,000 euros and double that for repeat offences.

It would only affect sites with more than 100,000 registered users, bring in revenues above 500,000 euros per year or receive press subsidies larger than 50,000 euros.

There would also be exemptions for retail sites as well as those that don't earn money from either ads or the content itself.

If passed and cleared by the EU, the law would take effect in 2020. The immediate issues noted are that some of the websites most offending the sensitivities of the government are often smaller than the trigger condition. The law may also step on the toes of the EU in rules governing which EU states has regulatory control over websites.

Update: Identity data will be available to other users

17th May 2019. See article from edri.org

The law on care and responsibility on the net forces media platforms with forums to store detailed data about their users in order to deliver them in case of a possible offence not only to police authorities, but also to other users who want to legally prosecute another forum user. Looking at the law in detail, it is obvious that they contain so many problematic passages that their intended purpose is completely undermined.

According to the Minister of Media, Gernot Blümel, harmless software will deal with the personal data processing. One of the risks of such a system would be the potential for abuse from public authorities or individuals requesting a platform provider the person's name and address with the excuse to wanting to investigate or sue them, and then use the information for entirely other purposes.

The Portman Group is a trade organisation for the UK alcoholic drinks industry. It acts as the industry's censor of drink marketing and packaging. It reports:

A recent complaint about Beavertown Brewery's product, Neck Oil , was not upheld by the Independent Complaints Panel

The complainant, a member of the public, expressed concern that the product uses bright colours and that the name Neck Oil implies that the product is to be consumed in one i.e. necked. Furthermore, the complainant said that the colours used on the packaging are clearly aimed at the younger market and encourage irresponsible consumption .

The Panel firstly considered whether the product has a particular appeal to under 18s. The Panel discussed the colour palette and illustrations on the can design and noted that muted, instead of contrasting, colours had been used and that the artwork was sophisticated, and adult in nature. The Panel concluded that there was no element of the can that could have a particular appeal to under 18s and accordingly did not uphold the complaint with regards to under 18s.

The Panel considered the company's submission and acknowledged that the phrase neck oil was widely recognised as colloquial term for beer both within and outside the industry. The Panel noted that neck was used as a noun and did not consider that its use in this way suggested a down in one style of consumption. The Panel concluded that there were no visual or text cues to encourage irresponsible or down in one consumption and accordingly did not uphold the complaint with regard to encouraging consumption.

In the aftermath of the horrific mosque attack in New Zealand, internet companies were interrogated over their efforts to censor the livestream video of Brenton Tarrant's propaganda.

Some of their responses have included ideas that point in a disturbing direction: toward increasingly centralized and opaque censorship of the global internet.

Facebook, for example, describes plans for an expanded role for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, or GIFCT. The GIFCT is an industry-led self-regulatory effort launched in 2017 by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube. One of its flagship projects is a shared database of hashes of files identified by the participating companies to be extreme and egregious terrorist content. The hash database allows participating companies (which include giants like YouTube and one-man operations like JustPasteIt) to automatically identify when a user is trying to upload content already in the database.

In Facebook's post-Christchurch updates, the company discloses that it added 800 new hashes to the database, all related to the Christchurch video. It also mentions that the GIFCT is experimenting with sharing URLs systematically rather than just content hashes --that is, creating a centralized list of URLs that would facilitate widespread blocking of videos, accounts, and potentially entire websites or forums.

See the full article from wired.com

VPNCompare is reporting that internet users in Britain are responding to the upcoming porn censorship regime by investigating the option to get a VPN so as to workaround most age verification requirements without handing over dangerous identity details.

VPNCompare says that the number of UK visitors to its website has increased by 55% since the start date of the censorship scheme was announced. The website also sated that Google searches for VPNs had trippled. Website editor, Christopher Seward told the Independent:

We saw a 55 per cent increase in UK visitors alone compared to the same period the previous day. As the start date for the new regime draws closer, we can expect this number to rise even further and the number of VPN users in the UK is likely to go through the roof.

The UK Government has completely failed to consider the fact that VPNs can be easily used to get around blocks such as these.

Whilst the immediate assumption is that porn viewers will reach for a VPN to avoid handing over dangerous identity information, there may be another reason to take out a VPN, a lack of choice of appropriate options for age validation.

3 companies run the 6 biggest adult websites. Mindgeek owns Pornhub, RedTube and Youporn. Then there is Xhamster and finally Xvideos and xnxx are connected.

Now Mindgeek has announced that it will partner with Portes Card for age verification, which has options for identity verification, giving a age verified mobile phone number, or else buying a voucher in a shop and showing age ID to the shop keeper (which is hopefully not copied or recorded).

Meanwhile Xhamster has announced that it is partnering with 1Account which accepts a verified mobile phone, credit card, debit card, or UK drivers licence. It does not seem to have an option for anonymous verification beyond a phone being age verified without having to show ID.

Perhaps most interestingly is that both of these age verifiers are smart phone based apps. Perhaps the only option for people without a phone is to get a VPN. I also spotted that most age verification providers that I have looked at seem to be only interested in UK cards, drivers licences or passports. I'd have thought there may be legal issues in not accepting EU equivalents. But foreigners may also be in the situation of not being able to age verify and so need a VPN.

And of course the very fact that is no age verification option common to the major porn website then it may just turn out to be an awful lot simpler just to get a VPN.

The Interrogator :

Is it safe?

The BBFC (on its Age Verification website)...err...no!...:

An assessment and accreditation under the AVC is not a guarantee that the age-verification provider and its solution (including its third party companies) comply with the relevant legislation and standards, or that all data is safe from malicious or criminal interference.

Accordingly the BBFC shall not be responsible for any losses, damages, liabilities or claims of whatever nature, direct or indirect, suffered by any age-verification provider, pornography services or consumers/ users of age-verification provider's services or pornography services or any other person as a result of their reliance on the fact that an age-verification provider has been assessed under the scheme and has obtained an Age-verification Certificate or otherwise in connection with the scheme.

Facebook has banned far-right groups including the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defence League (EDL) from having any presence on the social network. The banned groups, which also includes Knights Templar International, Britain First and the National Front as well as key members of their leadership, have been removed from both Facebook or Instagram.

Facebook said it uses an extensive process to determine which people or groups it designates as dangerous, using signals such as whether they have used hate speech, and called for or directly carried out acts of violence against others based on factors such as race, ethnicity or national origin.

Offsite comment: How to fight the new fascism

19th April 2019. See article from spiked-online.com by Andrew Doyle

This week we have seen David Lammy doubling down on his ludicrous comparison of the European Research Group with the Nazi party, and Chris Key in the Independent calling for UKIP and the newly formed Brexit Party to be banned from television debates. It is clear that neither Key nor Lammy have a secure understanding of what far right actually means and, quite apart from the distasteful nature of such political opportunism, their strategy only serves to generate the kind of resentment upon which the far right depends.

Offsite comment: Facebook is calling for Centralized Censorship. That Should Scare You

19th April 2019. See article from wired.com by Emma Llansó

If we're going to have coherent discussions about the future of our information environment, we--the public, policymakers, the media, website operators--need to understand the technical realities and policy dynamics that shaped the response to the Christchurch massacre. But some of these responses have also included ideas that point in a disturbing direction: toward increasingly centralized and opaque censorship of the global interne

PlayerUnknown's Battleground is a 2017 South Korea Battle Royale by PUBG Corporation

Nepal Telecommunication Authority has directed all the country's ISPs to ban PlayerUnknown's Battleground, commonly known PUBG, a popular multiplayer internet game.

The Metropolitan Crime Division had filed a Public Interest Litigation at the Kathmandu District Court seeking permission to ban PUBG claiming that the game was having a negative effect on the behaviour and study of children and youths. The district court gave permission to ban PUBG the same day.

Senior Superintendent of Police Dhiraj Pratap Singh, chief of the Metropolitan Crime Division said:

We received a number of complaints from parents, schools and school associations regarding the effect of the game on children. We also held discussions with psychiatrists before requesting the Kathmandu District Court for permission to ban the game.

Update: Iraqi parliamentarians call for a ban

15th April 2019. See article from en.radiofarda.com

Iraq's cultural parliamentary committee has submitted a draft on April 13th, 2019 suggesting to ban PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. The draft proposal would have to go through a draft review by parliamentary speaker Mohammed Al Halbousi.

The head of the culture committee, Sameaa Gullab, commented:

The committee is concerned about the obsession over these electronic games that ignite violence among children and youth. Its influence has spread rapidly among Iraq's society. We are proposing to parliament to block and ban all games that threaten social security, morality, education and all segments of Iraqi society.

Iraqi media reported incidents of suicide and divorce related to the games during the last year. Local media reporting on the craze has claimed it has led to nearly 40,000 divorces worldwide and more than 20 cases in Iraq.

The parliamentary censorship call also cites the suicide game Blue Whale , which has been a problem for some regions for quite some time.

Update: Iraq confirms ban of PUBG and Fortnite

19th April 2019. See article from pcgamer.com

Iraq's parliament has voted to ban the popular battle royale games Fortnite and Playerunknown's Battlegrounds because of their supposed detrimental influence on the population.

A Reuters report says the ban was put into place due to the negative effects caused by some electronic games on the health, culture, and security of Iraqi society, including societal and moral threats to children and youth.

Reaction to the ban was widely negative, according to the report, but not because people are angry that they can't play Fortnite. They may be, but the real issue is that Iraqis apparently see the ban as a emblematic of the government's misplaced priorities: While Iraq continues to struggle with sectarian violence, inadequate infrastructure, and political instability, the country's parliament has only managed to pass one piece of legislation since sitting in September 2018.

A Barcelona school has removed 200 children's books it considers sexist including Little Red Riding Hood and the story of the legend of Saint George, from its library.

The Tàber school's infant library of around 600 children's books was reviewed by the Associació Espai i Lleure as part of a project that aims to highlight hidden sexist content . The group reviewed the characters in each book, whether or not they speak and what roles they perform, finding that 30% of the books were highly sexist, had strong stereotypes and were, in its opinion, of no pedagogical value.

According to Associació Espai i Lleure, if young children see "strongly stereotypical" depictions of relationships and behaviours in what they read, they will consider them normal. Anna Tutzó, a parent who is on the commission that reviewed the books, told El País that "society is changing and is more aware of the issue of gender, but this is not being reflected in stories". Masculinity is associated with competitiveness and courage, and "in violent situations, even though they are just small pranks, it is the boy who acts against the girl", which "sends a message about who can be violent and against whom".

The European Parliament has approved a draft version of new EU internet censorship law targeting terrorist content.

In particular the MEPs approved the imposition of a one-hour deadline to remove content marked for censorship by various national organisations. However the MEPs did not approve a key section of the law requiring internet companies to pre-process and censor terrorsit content prior to upload.

A European Commission official told the BBC changes made to the text by parliament made the law ineffective. The Commission will now try to restore the pre-censorship requirement with the new parliament when it is elected.

The law would affect social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which could face fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover. What does the law say?

In amendments, the European Parliament said websites would not be forced to monitor the information they transmit or store, nor have to actively seek facts indicating illegal activity. It said the competent authority should give the website information on the procedures and deadlines 12 hours before the agreed one-hour deadline the first time an order is issued.

In February, German MEP Julia Reda of the European Pirate Party said the legislation risked the surrender of our fundamental freedoms [and] undermines our liberal democracy. Ms Reda welcomed the changes brought by the European Parliament but said the one-hour deadline was unworkable for platforms run by individual or small providers.

Hellboy is a 2019 USA action Sci-Fi fantasy by Neil Marshall.
Starring Daniel Dae Kim, Milla Jovovich and David Harbour.

Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge.

The latest remake of Hellboy hit Russian cinemas on 11 April. However, audiences in Russia discovered that in their version of the film a reference to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had been changed to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

[ Spoilers! hover or click text below]

In a line of expository dialogue, the film's titular character reveals that one of the supporting antagonists, Russian folklore character Baba Yaga, once attempted to resurrect the spirit of Stalin.

The original line, uttered by Hellboy upon confronting Baba Yaga, is: I recall you tried to raise Stalin's ghost from a necropolis.

In the film's Russian-language version, according to small independent TV channel Dozhd, the line goes: I want to remind you, you tried to raise Hitler's spirit from a necropolis.

Theatres screening the English-language version of the film complemented it with Russian subtitles. During this scene, the audio for Stalin's name was bleeped, while the subtitles said Hitler.

In addition a Russian swearword was removed (but swear words in English were allowed to remain).

In Russia, the film received an 18 rating compared with the BBFC's 15 rating and the MPAA's R rating.

Last week, an investigation by Bloomberg revealed that thousands of Amazon employees around the world are listening in on Amazon Echo users.

As we have been explaining across media, we believe that by using default settings and vague privacy policies which allow Amazon employees to listen in on the recordings of users' interactions with their devices, Amazon risks deliberately deceiving its customers.

Amazon has so far been dismissive, arguing that people had the options to opt out from the sharing of their recordings -- although it is unclear how their customers could have done so if they were not aware this was going on in the first place.

Even those who had read the privacy policy would have had a hard time interpreting "We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems" to mean that thousands of employees are each listening up to a thousand recordings per day. And sharing file recordings with one another they find to be "amusing".

As a result, today we wrote to Jeff Bezos to let him know we think Amazon needs to step up and do a lot better to protect the privacy of their customers.

If you use an Amazon Echo device and are concerned about this, read our instructions on how to opt out here .

Dear Mr. Bezos,

We are writing to call for your urgent action regarding last week's report [1] in Bloomberg, which revealed that Amazon has been employing thousands of workers to listen in on the recordings of Amazon Echo users.

Privacy International (PI) is a registered charity based in London that works at the intersection of modern technologies and rights. Privacy International challenges overreaching state and corporate surveillance, so that people everywhere can have greater security and freedom through greater personal privacy.

The Bloomberg investigation asserts that Amazon employs thousands of staff around the world to listen to voice recordings captured by the Amazon Alexa. Among other examples, the report states that your employees use internal chat rooms to share files when they "come across an amusing recording", and that they share "distressing" recordings -- including one of a sexual assault.

Currently, your privacy policy states: "We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems." We are concerned that your customers could not reasonably assume from such a statement that recordings of their interactions with the Amazon Echo could, by default, be listened to by your employees.

An ambiguous privacy policy and default settings that allow your employees to access recordings of all interactions is not our idea of consent. Instead, we believe the default settings should be there to protect your users' privacy.

Millions of customers enjoy your product and they deserve better from you. As such, we ask whether you will:

• Notify all users whose recordings have been accessed, and describe to them which recordings;

• Notify all users whenever their recordings are accessed in the future, and describe to them which recordings;

• Modify the settings of the Amazon Echo so that "Help Develop New Features" and "Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions" are turned off by default;

• Clarify your privacy policy so that it is clear to users that employees are listening to the recordings when the "Help Develop New Features" and "Use Messages to Improve Transcriptions" settings are on.

In your response to the Bloomberg investigation, you state you take the privacy of your customer seriously. It is now time for you to step up and walk the walk. We look forward to engaging with you further on this.

Sincerely yours,
Eva Blum-Dumontet

Reddit is a social media website that boasts 234 million members and approximately 8 billion page views per month.

Reddit's system is naturally built to highlight online influencers; all posts are automatically submitted to a voting process: The most up-voted messages receive the most visibility.

The site has a very passionate following and advertising on Reddit can be very successful. Companies are able to promote top posts to a very targeted audience, directly on its front page.

On Tuesday, Reddit posted an update about their Not Suitable for Work Advertising Policy. From now on, the platform doesn't allow any adult-oriented ads and targeting. Promoted posts pushing adult products or services are no longer permissible and NSFW subreddits will no longer be eligible for ads or targeting.

The new policy targets specifically targets pornographic and sexually explicit content as well as adult sexual recreational content, product and services.

The UK will become the first country in the world to bring in age-verification for online pornography when the measures come into force on 15 July 2019.

It means that commercial providers of online pornography will be required by law to carry out robust age-verification checks on users, to ensure that they are 18 or over.

Websites that fail to implement age-verification technology face having payment services withdrawn or being blocked for UK users.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the new laws. They have confirmed that they will begin enforcement on 15 July, following an implementation period to allow websites time to comply with the new standards.

Minister for Digital Margot James said that she wanted the UK to be the most censored place in the world to b eonline:

Adult content is currently far too easy for children to access online. The introduction of mandatory age-verification is a world-first, and we've taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content. We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this.

Government has listened carefully to privacy concerns and is clear that age-verification arrangements should only be concerned with verifying age, not identity. In addition to the requirement for all age-verification providers to comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards, the BBFC have created a voluntary certification scheme, the Age-verification Certificate (AVC), which will assess the data security standards of AV providers. The AVC has been developed in cooperation with industry, with input from government.

Certified age-verification solutions which offer these robust data protection conditions will be certified following an independent assessment and will carry the BBFC's new green 'AV' symbol. Details will also be published on the BBFC's age-verification website, ageverificationregulator.com so consumers can make an informed choice between age-verification providers.

BBFC Chief Executive David Austin said:

The introduction of age-verification to restrict access to commercial pornographic websites to adults is a ground breaking child protection measure. Age-verification will help prevent children from accessing pornographic content online and means the UK is leading the way in internet safety.

On entry into force, consumers will be able to identify that an age-verification provider has met rigorous security and data checks if they carry the BBFC's new green 'AV' symbol.

The change in law is part of the Government's commitment to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online, especially for children. It follows last week's publication of the Online Harms White Paper which set out clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe online, how these responsibilities should be met and what would happen if they are not.

Believe us, we can cure all society's ills

A government department responsible for data protection laws has shared the private contact details of hundreds of journalists.

The Department for Censorship, Media and Sport emailed more than 300 recipients in a way that allowed their addresses to be seen by other people.

The email - seen by the BBC - contained a press release about age verifications for adult websites .

Digital Minister Margot James said the incident was embarrassing. She added:

It was an error and we're evaluating at the moment whether that was a breach of data protection law.

In the email sent on Wednesday, the department claimed new rules would offer robust data protection conditions, adding: Government has listened carefully to privacy concerns.

Sony has confirmed a new set of censorship rules toning down sexually themed games on the PlayStation 4.

A Sony spokeswoman confirmed the company has established its own guidelines 'so that gaming 'does not inhibit the sound growth and development' of young people. This is allegedly a result of executives at the company being afraid the sale of sexually explicit games might hurt its global reputation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, One of their biggest concerns is software sold in the company's home market of Japan, which traditionally has had more tolerance for near-nudity and images of young women.

The Wall Street Journal points to two main reasons for the new policy based on its conversations with unnamed Sony officials. The first is the rise of the #MeToo movement. The second is the growing ubiquity of streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube where sexually explicit games coming out of Japan can find a global audience.

Sony is concerned the company could become a target of legal and social action, a Sony official in the U.S. told the Wall Street Journal.

The new guidelines are in contrast to Nintendo, which told the Wall Street Journal that sexually explicit games can be sold on the Switch as long they receive a rating from a national ratings agency.

An example of the news rules is the adult visual novel Nekopara Vol. 1 , which includes partial nudity and the option to pet female characters using a virtual cursor, released on Nintendo Switch last summer with a rating of Mature 17+ while the PS4 version was delayed until November. When it finally came out, fans reported several changes that made it less sexually explicit, including extra steam in bath scenes and the removal of a slider players could use in the other versions to make characters' breasts jiggle more.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has said again there is much work to do to improve Twitter and cut down on the amount of abuse and misinformation on the platform. He said the firm might demote likes and follows, adding that in hindsight he would not have designed the platform to highlight these.

Speaking at the TED technology conference he said that Twitter currently incentivised people to post outrage. Instead he said it should invite people to unite around topics and communities. Rather than focus on following individual accounts, users could be encouraged to follow hashtags, trends and communities.

Doing so would require a systematic change that represented a huge shift for Twitter.

One of the choices we made was to make the number of people that follow you big and bold. If I started Twitter now I would not emphasise follows and I would not create likes. We have to look at how we display follows and likes, he added.

The Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) chief censor Ezekiel Mutua has officially banned the viral song dubbed Takataka by upcoming rapper Alvin aka Alvindo.

Mutua blacklisted the song claiming that it is obscene and has degrading lyrics that advocate for violence against women by equating them to trash. Mutua described the song as primitive and abusive saying that the song has crude lyrics that objectifies women and glorifies hurting them as a normal reaction to the rejection of overtures by men. He added:

KFCB will institute criminal proceedings against the artist in 14 days if he fails to respond to our summons for a meeting where he can be accompanied by his lawyer.

Mutua added that the song was never submitted to the board for classification in the first place while urging artists and media houses to create and exhibit content that builds society.

Broadcasting, exhibition, distribution (including online) or possession of 'Takataka' is a criminal offence. This song should not be performed live or broadcast anywhere within the Republic of Kenya, said Mutua.

The song currently has 1 million views on Youtube .